If there is going to be an incrementing of Web 2.0, Amazon.com may be the company clicking the counter that flips it to the next number. Their release of the EC2 limited beta, called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, provides a virtual computing environment and bills only for what capacity is used.

The virtual machine image created by developers can be controlled through web service APIs. As needed, more instances of the image can be commissioned to run simultaneously, numbering hundreds or even thousands. They can be configured to scale up and down in number automatically, based on needs.

Amazon said on its site the EC2 service has been designed to work with S3, which gives developers storage and computing in a combined package. An EC2 instance provides the equivalent of a system with a 1.7Ghz Xeon CPU, 1.75GB of RAM, 160GB of local disk, and 250Mb/s of network bandwidth, according to their documentation.

These instances, dubbed Amazon Machine Images, can be created from scratch from among a number of building block AMIs like web, application, and database servers. Several globally available AMIs that have been preconfigured can be chosen for use to serve a given purpose, without needing to build a custom AMI.

Once created, the developer would upload the instance to the S3 service, and register the AMI. Amazon then assigns it a unique identifier to it. Users can run, monitor, and terminate instances by using the identifier along with the EC2 web service APIs to do so.

Together, S3 and EC2 have a cost structure that could benefit the next cash-poor but idea-rich entrepreneurs who want to build an online service without incurring the massive debt many take on in the form of credit card loans, second mortgages, and other money-raising ideas.

Moreover co-founder David Galbraith blogged that this represented the grid computing idea that has been bandied around by Oracle for some time. He also wryly noted, “If it were Google that had launched this, I imagine there would have been more fuss.”:

Who knows? Maybe the next Amazon.com or the next Google will come from Amazon’s web services.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Based on the new Sun Grid and Archipelago’s electronic matching technology, the companies plan to introduce a new electronic trading environment that will allow customers to bid on CPU usage cycles. Being able to dynamically bid for open compute cycles will provide companies across the globe with unprecedented flexibility in planning for the purchase and use of compute power. This is a new paradigm in computing where companies can access an unlimited number of CPUs as they need them.

“Archipelago leads the way when it comes to electronic trading technology,” said Robert Youngjohns, executive vice president of strategic development and Sun financing at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “With Sun Grid, and Archipelago’s matching technology, we expect companies will be able to access an unlimited number of CPUs as they need them — and have access to technology that is reliable, simple to use, powerful, and sophisticated — at a single point of contact.”

“We believe the technological underpinnings of the Archipelago Exchange could be customized to trade nearly anything, and as the demand for computing power increases, we see great potential in building an exchange for trading CPU usage cycles,” said Steve Rubinow, CTO of the Archipelago Exchange. “We’re excited about partnering with Sun and developing this opportunity.”

The compute exchange announcement comes on the back of Sun’s new utility offerings, which include the Sun Grid compute utility, a $1 per CPU per hour pay-per-use offering, and the Sun Grid storage utility, a $1 per gigabyte per month offering. In the coming months, Sun will also roll out additional Sun Grid offerings for the desktop and developer communities.

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SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and the project is operated by the University of California at Berkeley. SETI monitors and processes radio signals from space, looking for possible signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. SETI uses proprietary software to distribute computer processing power among all connected PCs participating in SETI project so that the radio signals can be processed faster and more efficiently. SETI effectively creates one big supercomputer from thousands of connected PCs across their network. Now users of the Google Toolbar can contribute to scientific research in much the same way, through Google Compute.

Google has teamed with Folding@home for their first project. This research organization is non-profit and based at Stanford University. They use participants’ combined computing power to analyze the genetic structure of proteins for medical research.

Once installed to the Google Toolbar, Google Compute can be disabled easily at any time. While enabled, it will use your computer’s otherwise idle time to process computing work assigned to it automatically from Folding@home, then automatically transfer results back to Folding@home when complete.

Users have plenty of informational and control options for Google Compute. A system tray icon (a double helix) indicates that Google Compute is running, and when bright, the same icon indicates that processing work is being performed. There are two modes available to help prevent interference with other programs that you use.

Google Compute requires Windows, IE5 or higher, 64 megabytes of RAM minimum, and the English version of the Google toolbar. A high speed internet connection isn’t required, but you should routinely connect to the Internet every few days, and be prepared for a delay while the processed data is uploaded. Data is transferred using outbound HTTP, so it will work through most semi-transparent firewalls. About 20 megabytes per month of data is transferred to the Folding@home project.

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